Simon Rickett - The power of email marketing

Making Email
Marketing Work
For You
Success Strategies For
Your Business
Making Email Marketing Work For You
Success Strategies For Your Business
Simon Rickett Page | 1

Learn successful email marketing strategies to
grow your business with a minimal cost and
maximum impact.
Table of Contents
Introduction – Email Marketing; It’s Not Just for The Big Boys

3
Chapter One – Email Marketing

8
Chapter Two – A Brief History of the Internet and Email Marketing

15
Chapter Three – Email Marketing, Getting Permission

30
Chapter Four – Making a List, Checking it Twice…

53
Chapter Five – Strategies that Work

59

Introduction – Email Marketing; It’s Not Just for The Big
Boys by Simon Rickett
Not long ago, I was walking down the main shopping street in a nearby town
when I stopped in at The Sweet Spot, a bakery and sweet shop I’ve been known to
frequent. It is a great place to sit down, have a coffee and a slice of pie and reﬂect on
all the good things life has to offer. Without question, it has always been the
happiest, sweetest place I know. When I’m down, I go there to feel better. When I’m
feeling good, I go there to feel great.
I sat down at the counter, set up my laptop and then greeted Betty, the owner of the
shop.
“How’s the blueberry pie today?”
“Piping fresh,” she said.
“Then please bring over a slice of the pie and coffee.”
She brought over a generous slice, along with a cup of my favorite coffee.
“Thanks, love,” I said, happily accepting my order. I set my laptop to the side to make

way for the pie and then enjoyed some pie and sipped my coffee. In between, I
tapped away at my laptop, checking email and surfing the Web. After a few minutes, I
looked around the shop. Even for this time of day, it seemed curiously empty. “Where
is everyone?” I asked, half-jokingly. “Have I missed out on a national holiday or
something?”
Betty came over and shrugged. Then she leaned her elbows on the counter. “You
tell me,” she said. “To be honest, business has been getting slower and slower. I
don’t know how I’m going to stay open.”
This last bit of news filled me with apprehension. “What do you mean?” I asked
anxiously, suddenly fearful of the day when Betty’s blueberry pie might not be
available whenever I fancied a slice.
“Business is tough. Rents are high. I’ve got salaries to pay. I need to sell more
pie and sweets to make a profit.” She glanced around her shop. The booths were
bright and cheery. The floor, highly polished. The display cases were filled with
delicious pies and gorgeous sweets. There was a brilliant coffee aroma filling the air.
It was, by every standard, a bright and cheery place. “I thought that I’d get more
people when I went to the wi-fi service,” she said. “Students. Office workers.
Whatever. And it helped. But still not enough to get enough of them through the
doors and into the shop.”
I knew that the Sweet Spot was everything people like me – and a lot of other
people – would love. So why weren’t more people here? I sipped my coffee and then
looked her directly in the eye. “Have you advertised?”

“Of course. In all the usual places…”
“Aha,” I said. “What do you mean, all the usual places?”
“I’ve put an advert in the local newspaper,” she said. “I’ve made nice displays for
the window.” She looked directly at me. “I sent out coupons in a mailing, which was
successful, but that cost too much money to do often.” She lowered her eyes. “I don’t
know what else to do.”
“Newspaper? Displays in the window? Coupon in snail mail? Betty, luv, it’s
time you entered the twenty-first century,” I said, my voice both sympathetic and
gently critical.
She looked at me curiously. “I don’t understand.”
“You’ve put in wi-fi for your customers, which is great, but you haven’t even
begun to use technology for your own benefit. You need to take advantage of the
Internet and technology to grow your business.”
“You mean the Internet?”
“For starters. I’ll bet you don’t even have a web site.”
“A web site? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Besides, isn’t the Internet for the
big shops and stores?”
“Not at all. It’s for people just like you with shops just like yours.”
“But what do I do? Where do I start? I don’t know how,” she explained.
I smiled. “Then, my dear, you have just served some delicious blueberry pie to
someone who can help you.”
“Have I now?” she asked, meeting my smile with an even broader smile of her

own.
“Indeed you have.”
“Would you like another slice of pie?”
I raised my hand in protest. “I couldn’t. But, if you’d be so kind as to refill my
coffee, I’d be glad to start to help.”
In short order, my coffee was refilled and Betty was seated beside me at the
counter. I explained to her that “bricks and mortar” shops like hers were at risk
unless they learned to compete in a world that was becoming rapidly wireless. “Not
that long ago, you could have rested easy that you would do fine – as you’re the only
pie and sweet shop on the block. But now High Street exists in virtual space and there
are hundreds of shops there for people to visit.”
“But people can’t eat on the Internet,” Betty protested. “And they can’t have a
slice of blueberry pie on the Internet.”
“Right you are. However, because of the Internet, they can get blueberry pie from
a shop in France and have coffee beans shipped directly to their homes from
Colombia.
There’s a shop in Melbourne that is half the size of yours that is sending sweet to a
customer in London right now.
“There’s…”
She waved her hands in the air, getting flustered and overwhelmed. “All right, all
right. I get it. I’m not a complete loon, you know. I know the Internet is important. But

you’re saying that I can use the Internet to get more customers and make more
money?
You’ve got my attention. But how do I do it?”
I smiled. “First, you have to stop thinking of the Internet as a foreign country – as
someplace out there – and start thinking of it concretely as everyone’s High Street.
Once you are able to do that, everything else I’m going to say will start to make a bit
more sense.”
She shuddered and then she nodded warily. “Okay, I can do that I think.” Then
she let out a low whistle. “My little shop, here in reality, is competing with shops all
over the world and you tell me I have to think of the shops on the Internet
concretely.”
I laughed. “I guess when you put it that way, it can seem a bit topsy-turvy. But I
promise you, it isn’t. What’s more, it is simply the way of the world so the sooner you
can manage to think of the virtual world as your world, the sooner – and more
successfully – you will be able to be part of it.
“And the sooner you will realise that the easiest and best way to communicate
with your customers and get them here, and buying your pies and sweets, is through
email marketing.”
“Email marketing, what’s that?”

Chapter One – Email Marketing by Simon Rickett
Although the reputation of email marketing has been sullied by unscrupulous
practitioners who have flooded people’s email accounts with the Internet equivalent
of your local refuse site the vast majority of email marketers are legitimate. They are,
in truth, the vendors who ply their wares along the virtual High Street that runs
through every town, village, city and country of the world.
They are IBM and Microsoft. They are also my friend Betty.
Broken down to its most basic definition, email marketing is simply a form of direct
marketing that takes advantage of the Internet and email services to allow businesses
– and non-profits and charities, etc. – to send commercial or fundraising information
directly to potential customers and clients.
While this definition covers “email marketing” in its broadest sense – that is, any
and every email message sent to a current or potential customer or client, when we
speak about email marketing, we usually have a much more focused picture in mind.
“For example,” I said to Betty, “let’s say that you wanted a regular customer – me
– to come in to try and different kind of pie. You could engage me in email marketing
to get me back in the shop and to think about trying more of your wonderful pies.”
In other words, email marketing is a lot more than simply sending out emails saying,
“Here I am!” They are as subtle and important as any other type of successful
marketing, only adapted to the realities of the twenty-first century world. Email
marketing is designed to improve the professional relationship between a merchant
and his or her customers, to bring old customers back or to just keep the customers

coming in (both to the bricks and mortar store or to the virtual store on a website.) In
short, email marketing seeks to strengthen the bond between merchant and
customer.
Of course, a well-crafted email message is also designed to win over new “converts” –
people who might become new customers. Such a message also acts as an
enhancement to some “impulse” shopping. For example, if I wasn’t in the mood for
pie but I received an email from Betty with a brilliant graphic of strawberry
shortcake…
well, that might just be enough to get me to stop by for a slice. Or, more likely, if the
email advertised sweets, to make a point of ordering or picking up sweets for a
special friend.
Often, email marketing will be a “collaborative” effort. In other words, Betty’s emails
might include virtual coupons from some other shop. “The ceramic store perhaps?”
Betty asked enthusiastically. “They have a lovely line of coffee mugs.”
“Exactly,” I said.
There are many reasons to opt for email marketing over the many other marketing
methods and outlets that exist. For starters, email marketing is the most proﬁtable –
and affordable – way for a merchant to reach his existing and prospective customers.
Studies have shown that nearly eighty percent of marketers and almost seventy
percent of customers believe that email marketing is effective.
“Can you say as much for the advert you put in the paper?” I asked Betty.
“God no!” she exclaimed. Then she became thoughtful. “I don’t think anyway.

How would I know?”
“The same way the pros would – you’d guess,” I explained. “That’s how it’s
always worked in the past. Whether print, radio or television, there was no way to
really know how effective your ad campaign was.
“Sure, you could track the changes in business or sales before and after an ad
runs, but in the end, you are just guessing. With an email campaign – especially one
that is linked to a web site, you would be able to know exactly how many people
opened the email, how long they spent reading it, which links they clicked and what
they were most interested in.”
“You’re saying that I could probably figure out if people shopped in my shop
because of what I offered or what I charged?”
“With a well-structured campaign, absolutely,” I said. “And once you’ve earned
a customer’s trust then your continued emails will be incredibly effective. Your email
campaign will seem almost like a personal correspondence with them.”
There are many advantages to email marketing that make it preferable to other
forms of advertising. Once a merchant has purchased or acquired a mailing list
(through in-store sign-ups, etc.) she is able to get her information out to a large
number of specific actual and potential customers without the scattershot
imprecision of every other type of media and marketing. What’s more, this can be
done at a very low cost, particularly when the mailing list is used over and over. (The
mailing list is often one of the most significant costs in email marketing.)
Another advantage to email marketing is that it is instantaneous. Unlike other

forms of marketing – like snail mail – when you hit the “send” button, the message is
delivered immediately, not two, three or four days later – if at all.
Email marketing is proactive. Unlike simple website marketing, which is a passive
form of advertising (the site is there, the customer must come to the site) in the
same way a bricks and mortar shop almost always represents a passive merchant-
customer relationship (the shop is there, the customer must walk through the door.) I
refer to this dynamic as the “mother ship” dynamic. Almost every merchant feels that
she can offer her customers a ﬁrst-rate product or service if only her customers
would come to the mother ship.
With email marketing, the dynamic is shifted and with it the energy of the
relationship. Email marketing allows you to go to your customer. It is proactive. It is
forward-leaning without being aggressive (your customer can still choose not to
respond to the email or the advertising.)
Of course, as I’ve mentioned, email marketing allows you to track your customers’
preferences. Knowing your customers’ preferences puts you, the merchant, in
a much stronger position when it comes to marketing your service and product.
“Imagine,” I said to Betty, “if you had the ability to identify which of your
customers loved only pie and which loved only chocolate sweets and which leaned
towards chocolate chip cookies – you would be able to tailor advertising to each one
of them in such a way to bring them into the shop, or to have them make a purchase
on line.

In either case, you do not waste time, money or your customer’s goodwill by
bombarding her with product or service information that is of no interest to her.”
What’s more, many new laws (and even marketing etiquette) require customers to
“opt in” to receive emails. By working with such “opted in” customers, you are already
working with a customer base which you know is inclined to respond favorably to
your product or services.
It is also possible to make email marketing “interactive.” Certain types of responses
to your marketing campaign could result in other messages to be delivered.
As I suggested to Betty, someone who purchases a box of chocolates at Valentine’s
Day is likely a romantic who might be interested in her line of “sweet seduction”
sweets.
Someone ordering a “theme cake” automatically adds to the customer profile on
hand.
While this advantage might not be terribly obvious for Betty’s products, imagine
how other merchants could take advantage of such things. A sporting goods
company getting an order for hiking trousers could automatically add the customer’s
profile for a special sale on hiking boots, fishing gear or birdwatching books. A
druggist whose customer purchases suntan lotion automatically puts that customer
on the list for sunglasses specials.
And, email marketing is green. No more wasted paper and envelopes. No more
trees needlessly chopped down for naught.

Betty, as you can imagine, was duly impressed by the possibilities email marketing
afforded her – and equally energised by the possibilities that the world of the
Internet opened to her as a person, should she choose to embrace it. But despite her
enthusiastic response, Betty had, to quote her, “seen more than a few seasons come
and go in my lifetime.”
“I’ve been to more country fairs and heard more carney barkers than I’d care to
remember,” she said. “I know for a fact that nothing is ever as good as it sounds. So
what’s the downside?”
Ah, that’s Betty. Always thinking. A good thing too. For nothing in the world is
perfect and for you to be successful at email marketing, you need to be thoughtful,
creative and hard-working. The primary disadvantage to email marketing has been
the problems created by the overuse of email marketing and the unscrupulous
behavior of a small minority of marketers.
These people churn out and send unsolicited bulk email – better known as SPAM.
Because the misuse of email marketing predates the more appropriate use of email
marketing, legitimate merchants have found themselves digging themselves out of a
hole not of their own doing. Often, the perception of email marketers is so negative
that it is nearly impossible for legitimate marketers to convince customers to
distinguish them from the spammers and outright fraudulent email marketers.
This is made more difficult because illegitimate spammers go to great lengths to

appear to be legitimate, making it even more difficult for the legitimate email
marketer to establish his space.
The proliferation of spam email on the Internet has forced most users to set up a
spam filter on their computer. Some marketers complain that their legitimate emails
get caught up in the filter’s net.
“That’s the downside?”
I nodded my head. “That’s it. Other than the fact that unscrupulous folks kind of
got there first, I can’t think of any downside to email marketing.”
Betty was thoughtful as she nodded her head. “That’s very interesting,” she
noted. “No downside.” She looked me in the eye. “It’s effective, efficient, affordable…”
“Easy to get started,” I said, adding to her list. “Flexible and, to tell the truth, it’s kind
of fun.” I chuckled. “Watching all your customers read your email in real time.”
Needless to say, I had gotten her attention.
I hope I’ve gotten yours.

Chapter Two – A Brief History of the Internet and Email
Marketing by Simon Rickett
Gazing back into the hazy distant past… oh say, a decade or so ago, a relatively
few people had email addresses. And those who did, found them cumbersome to use.
Email addresses were identified by long numeric sequences that seemed to have
nothing at all to do with the person who owned the account.
Fast-forward to now. Does anyone know anyone who doesn’t have an email
address? Most people have multiple accounts – personal, professional, FaceBook,
MySpace… AOL accounts, Google accounts, whatever. Along with this accumulation of
email accounts has come a sea change in how we view the computer, the Internet,
communication… the whole show. Ten years ago, people were reluctant to purchase
clothes from catalogs. Now the catalogs have all been digitised and a consumer can
see how a dress might look on her particular body type – and change colors, fabrics
and details while she’s at it. Web sites allow consumers to go on virtual tours of
products and services. They can see how their houses would look renovated. They
can move furniture purchases around in different configurations.
Ten years ago, fifteen years ago no one knew what a emoticon was! Now the
little devils punctuate more communications than anyone cares to admit.
What a sea change this all represents.

From little used to an absolute necessity; from slow land lines to cable to wi-fi,
people can hardly bear to be separated from their email accounts, picking them up on
their Blackberries, iPhones, their mobile phones, wherever. People have become
more expert in the use of email and the Internet, more aware of its downsides and
much, much more aware of its many advantages.
Along with that growing expertise came a growing sophistication in the way
email and the Internet could be used for marketing. While consumers absolutely rebel
against spam, they are also happily dependent on their email relationships with any
number of businesses, marketing firms and institutions. Imagine how you would feel
if you ordered something on line and you did not receive a confirmation via email!
You’d immediately – and likely correctly – assume something was wrong.
Email communication has taken the place of notes, letters and, to a large degree,
phone conversations. Certainly when it comes to commerce, email is preferred. After
all, you not only have all the information you require in a manageable format, you
have written documentation and confirmation of every aspect of the transaction.
With each passing year, email occupies a more valued place in our ability to
communicate and our expectations about how we communicate. As a communication
tool, email is well on the way to becoming fully integrated into our personal and
professional lives.
At its inception, email was little more than a vehicle for acquisition. The nature

of the communications were brief and perfunctory. With each passing day, it is
become a critical component in retaining customers and creating loyalty. Current
research has shown that more than ninety percent of customers expect emails to
confirm orders, and almost as many expect to receive shipping confirmations.
Consumers are dedicated “emailers.” They are online sending and receiving
email numerous times over the course of the day. Often, workers will check their
home emails while on the job and will almost as often check in with their professional
email accounts when they are at home.
Pretty amazing growth for a system initially designed to be a way for scientists to
interact easily. In fact, you can be sure that those initial visionaries had no idea that
their system would one day become what it’s become.
Gather `round, and let me tell you the story of what we now call “the Internet.” It
all began, way back in the 1950’s with those pesky Russians and Sputnik. Sputnik, the
Russian head start into space completely freaked out the United States and it
immediately started scrambling to make up for lost time.
By the early 1960’s, there were some pretty smart people who realised that there
was a lot to be gained by figuring out a way for computers to share information about
research and development in scientific and military matters (absolutely nothing to do
with purchasing a pair of trousers, a hotel room, an airline flight, a pair of shoes or a
box of chocolates!)
By 1965, Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a computer in Massachusetts with
one in California. Of course, this was over a dial-up telephone line so in addition to

demonstrating that networking was possible, this success also exposed the limits of
the phone system.
Over the next four years, the “Internet” (then called ARPANET for “Advanced
Research Projects Agency-Network) connected the computers at four universities in
the Western United States – Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, UCSB, and the
University of Utah.
“Routers” were part of the essential design of the network, ensuring that it would
still be up and running even in the event of nuclear attack. This earliest Internet was
the province of computer experts, scientists, and librarians. Remember, this was in
the days before PC’s, home computing or personal office computers. Bill Gates had
not even dreamt of his operating system yet. Using a computer required the user to
be capable of writing code in one of a handful of computer languages.
The Internet was not friendly yet. Not by a long shot.
It wasn’t until 1972 that an email system was adapted from the network and it
wasn’t until fourteen years later that the commands for email were standardised,
allowing people who weren’t quite so technically-savvy to begin to use the system.
Mind you, it was still difficult – particularly by today’s standards. But it was a start.
The door was opened and if people didn’t exactly stampede through, change was in
the air.
By the 1990’s, a genuinely friendly user interface was ﬁnally developed for the
Internet, making it possible for just about anyone to use the system – if they chose
to.

But why would they? There wasn’t anything for them to really connect to or with. Not
yet anyway.
Then came Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Of course, as soon as
Microsoft got into the picture, things changed big time. By the release of Windows 98
in June of 1998, Microsoft’s browser was fully integrated into the Windows desktop.
Bill Gates knew a winner when he saw it and he was determined to make sure that
Microsoft was the major player in the Internet.
During this time, the Internet was a lot like the Wild West. Rules were few and
far between at best. Businesses entered the Internet as they would any other foreign
country – and tried to find economic models that worked, bringing us to the twenty-
first century when we could all be grateful recipients of the development of this
amazing... what?
Tool? System?
New land?
Virtual reality?
Whatever it is called, it is here, it is real and it is where business will live and
thrive.
Which brings us back to email marketing. For not only is the Internet the place
where businesses will succeed, it is the place where those businesses will meet their
customers, inform them about products and services, keep them updated on the
progress of their orders, and seek to further develop the relationship between
merchant and customer.
Email marketing, like the Internet itself, has grown in complexity and subtlety,
honing the “elegance” of its message and finding that to be successful, one needs to

develop a number of different marketing strategies and modalities. In short, a simple
email message would not be enough to remain successful in the new Internet
environment.
For example, recent studies have suggested that “open rates” (the number of times
that an email message resulted in a customer opening the message) had declined by
just under twenty percent. On ﬁrst glance, that decline seems as if it should be cause
for alarm. A twenty percent drop? If the stock market were to experience a similar
decline, a ﬁnancial crisis would grip the world. And yet, experts greeted this statistic
with remarkable aplomb.
Not surprisingly, the number itself might be misleading. The number of people
who are actually opening up messages might not be declining at all. The reason for
the appearance of a decline is that anti-spam software was blocking the messages,
asking for permission to download the images in the message. The message was
being read but there was no way to track that fact because the code that tracks the
open rates is embedded in the images!
If the receiver of the email declines to manually open the images – declines to hit
that bar at the top of the email that says, “some pictures have been blocked…” – then
there is no way to know for certain whether or not the email has been opened.
Countering concern about a drop in open rates are statistics that show that the
number of people who click on a link in emails that are reported has remained steady
over the last few years. So what should a company do when considering an email

campaign?
Over the years, three basic kinds of email marketing have evolved: Direct Email;
Retention Email, and; Advertising or linking in another merchant’s email.
Direct Email
Direct Email is exactly what it sounds like – email that you send directly to your
potential and existing customers to alert them to something pertaining to your
product or services. The email might be a simple announcement: “We’re opening a
new shop and we’d like you to come out and see us! Specials galore!” or it might be
an update about your products. It might even be a “keeping in touch” message, in
which you send along a comment about your customers’ interests and how you might
work with them. For instance, if you are a surf shop, you might send along
information about surfing conditions in the area (or even in areas further away) along
with a reminder of your line of surfboards, waxes, board shorts and sunglasses.
“How do I know who to email?” Betty asked.
“Acquiring an email list is both science and art,” I explained to her. “For
example, you could start you list here in the shop, asking patrons like me to sign up
for email notifications of specials. Because you offer wi-fi, you will find that many of
your customers will gladly sign up because they depend on email to conduct their day
to day business.
“You could mail out coupons for a free cupcake on people’s birthday if they return a
card with an email address on it. People will often gladly give you their email

address when such a sweet reward is in the offing.
“Of course, this last method does require you to use either snail mail or the
newspaper to begin your list but as Isaac Newton said, ‘We stand on the shoulders of
giants.’ You can’t very well move into the future without starting in the present.”
If you do choose to begin your list “the old fashioned way”, they you must make
sure you are collecting email addresses at every customer and potential customer
touch point – at every point of contact between you and your customer. That means
at every register, in every package, in every promotion, everywhere. If you miss a
touch point then you are potentially losing a customer’s email.
Mind you that you should be doing this anyway. Email is such a brilliant way to
market your product and services that you are simply foolish not to take advantage of
it.
Each and every email address you collect is valuable to you. It represents
tremendous potential to you and your shop. When you’ve established an email list,
send out an email list inviting your list to send in friends’ emails for special
promotions and discounts. Think of each email address not only as a customer but as
an opportunity to get two or three more addresses.
You won’t always be successful in getting email addresses “off line” but it is always
worth the effort.
“However, the most efficient method of creating a list is to leave the legwork to

someone else. There are any number of service companies that have compiled email
lists based on any number of criteria – special interests, locality, the sporting team
they follow. These companies rent out their lists. For a fee, they will let you send your
message using their list.”
If you take advantage of this last method of sending out emails, you might want to
draft your messages in such a way that your customers reply to you with their email
addresses, allowing you to begin compiling your own list.
“Why can’t I just buy a list?” Betty wanted to know.
I think she grew alarmed when she saw the color immediately drain from my face.
“No!” I cried out, waving my hands in the air. “No, no. Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Although buying a list might seem to be the smartest move – in that you simply
buy the list, there are no other fees to worry about, and you can send out
promotional messages and newsletters as often as you would like – it is emphatically
not the smartest move. Almost all of the time, it is not even a smart move. In fact, it
is almost always a dumb move.
Buy an email bulk list and you have bought yourself a shortcut to an experience
that would make the hairs on the back of Dante’s neck stand on end.
When you compile a list of email addresses yourself (or “piggyback” onto a
legitimate list) you are in possession of a very, very valuable commodity. Your list
represents a very real list of people with whom you have established or you are in the
process of establishing a solid, trust-based relationship. They are people who have

demonstrated interest in your product and service or, even better, they have used
your product or services and have been happy with them.
In other words, they are very likely to want to hear from you and want to continue
to be your customer.
The value of your list must be nurtured. It is like a campfire that you have started
from twigs and tended carefully against the elements. Abuse it or neglect it and you
risk losing its entire value.
The fire can go out.
Overuse your list by sending out too many promotions and your customers will
tire of hearing from you. You will become an annoyance. You will become “just
another piece of email to delete.” You will have lost that customer – on the Internet
and in your brick and mortar world. Worse, you may anger your customer enough
that they report you as a “spammer.”
When it comes to email marketing, the saying “use it or lose it” needs to be
seriously modified. Use it judiciously and wisely, otherwise you will lose it.
What this means is that smart people are very, very careful with their lists. If they do
choose to allow other people to use it, they will undoubtedly seek to exert a great
deal of control over its use. What’s more, they will only allow their list to be used if
the people on their list have given permission (usually when they first signed up for
the list) to receive material from third parties. That’s the “opt in” feature that we will
discuss in more detail below.
Any owner of a list who is willing to sell copies of the list doesn’t care about the

list. The list is not a vehicle for him. It is a product in its own right, one that he wants
to sell to get the best price for.
He doesn’t care that the list is inevitably going to be ruined because once multiple
copies are out and being used, no central person or agent is controlling the number
of emails that are going out to the list, or even the products and services being
advertised.
The people on the list are overwhelmed with unwanted messages.
They reach right for the delete key.
Response rates fall apart. The value of email marketing is completely compromised.
Understanding this, can you imagine why any legitimate list owner would ever
sell copies of his list? Certainly no owner interested in preserving its value would do
such a thing. Therefore, you can be reasonably certain that if someone does offer to
sell you a bulk list of email addresses you are being offered a spam list. And being on
a spam list means that you have not only wasted your money by purchasing the list
but you have wasted your money by acquiring a list of people who have not agreed
that they want to receive your message or a list of people that has been rendered
absolutely useless because it has been misused and overused by any number of other
marketers.
Buy such a list and you’ll be fortunate to end up with nothing more than a poor

return and response. A much more realistic – and worse – case is that you will be
labeled as a spammer. Such a label has real consequences. None of them good.
There are some truths in the bricks and mortar world that carry over to the Internet.
One them is, If it seems to good to be true, it probably is. So if you get wind of an
offer like a million addresses for $100, I have only one piece of advice: Run away.
Fast.
Which is not to say that it is not possible to purchase a legitimate list legitimately.
It can be done. Lists do change ownership under certain circumstances. If you do
purchase a list, make absolutely certain that you are buying the list itself. Make sure
you are not purchasing a copy.
A legitimate list sold by a legitimate source will be the only copy. The seller will
not keep a copy for himself.
It is also possible to pay for email addresses through co-registrations. That is a
situation where other websites invite people to sign up for your list and then charge
you a fee for providing that service (the fee is usually based on the number of people,
or emails, that sign up.)
(Note: it is sometimes confusing when you are consulting marketing
professionals about email lists. You will often hear them speak of “buying” or
“purchasing” lists. While this seems contradictory to the advice I’ve given here, it’s
not.
Inevitably, though they use words like “buy” or “purchase” what they are really talking
about is “renting.”

As we’ve discussed, renting a list is a completely different proposition. The
downside of the rented lists is that you have to pay a fee each time you use them and
you must constantly be on top of ensuring that you have the right list to match your
product, service, and goals.
So, in the short term, it is always better to “piggy back” on an existing list while
you are in the process of creating your own, homegrown list. Ultimately, you will ﬁnd
that there is no good substitute for creating your own list, made up of your
customers and people who have opted-in to receiving your emails.
In the end, you will want to create your own list, one that is most closely matched
to your needs, that is made up of your customers and of people who have chosen to
receive messages from you.
Not only is such a list yours – so you don’t have to pay each time you use it – it
represents the best return on your time and money investment. The people you are
emailing are most likely to be the ones who will respond positively to your
promotions and adverts.
They are your customers. Over time, you will get to know them and their needs.
In time, you will not base your list on your product and services but as you get to
know your customers you will also ﬁnd that you are modifying your products and
services to meet their needs as well.

Retention Email
Ultimately, your goal in your email marketing is to get a customer to purchase
something that you offer. As is the case in all sales, that can sometimes be
accomplished quickly and easily. Other times closing a sale requires a little time and
consideration. All legitimate merchants know that their best customers are loyal
customers. They work hard to develop on-going and long-term relationships with
their customers. While price is often a signiﬁcant consideration in any purchase, other
factors come into play as well – service, trust, etc. Merchants who recognise that
“service” is a major variable in any successful endeavor will intuitively understand the
beneﬁt of Retention Email.
Retention Email is not a promotional email designed solely to get your customer
to purchase something, sign-up for something, come into the shop, etc. It is
designed as a “keeping in touch” kind of message; it is an email designed to establish
and strengthen long-term relationships with your customers. This type of email
generally are sent out at regular intervals (weekly, monthly) and contain information
that is of more general interest than a simple sales pitch. These emails are known as
newsletters or e-zines.
Although email newsletters are a great way to keep your customers, prospective
customers and others current on your product or service, when done creatively and

expertly, your newsletter is more than that. Just about anyone can use a template to
create a “professional looking newsletter” and then hit the “send” button. But creating
a successful newsletter – which demands more than simply creating the newsletter
itself – is a bit more complex.
Although your newsletter should include all sorts of promotions, adverts, specials,
etc. a successful newsletter is the epitome of “soft sell.”
For better or worse, whether it’s the “fault” of unscrupulous marketers or just the
numbers of merchants “out there” we are all inundated by way too much stuff. We all
receive a ton of promotional email daily. Personally, I don’t mind receiving this
material so long as I can see that it provides real value. Sadly, most do not. Most
newsletters are poor excuses for shouting out the name of a store, merchant or
product. It is garish and off-putting.
It is not the way to run a successful Retention Email campaign. Remember: soft
sell. What you are really providing in your retention campaign is a long-term
message.
You’re communicating not a product or service but a relationship. As in any
relationship, missteps are forgiven much more readily the further along you get.
Don’t be obnoxious on the ﬁrst date. And don’t send out a newsletter that it too
obvious, too “needy”, to hard sell. If you do, you will hurt your chances for creating a
good, long term relationship (or for establishing a good relationship) with your
customers.

Again, a newsletter can – and probably should – include promotional items and
ads. But they should be understated. They should not call attention to themselves.
Take the time to let your customers get to know you. The relationship you are
establishing will not only be long-term, so will the dividends to you.
Advertising in other people’s emails when you are first establishing your email
marketing campaign, it might be worthwhile for you to simply advertise in other
people’s email newsletters. If they are newsletters that are well done, you will reap
some of the benefits. People who have positive relationships with the newsletter will
automatically transfer that relationship to you and your product.
Particularly if you are a small business or a small shop, it might not be worth your
time or effort to actually create a newsletter. Indeed, your product or service might
not warrant a regular newsletter mailing by itself. However, if you find an email
newsletter that encompasses the interests that you identify with your customers and
their needs, then you can advertise in that newsletter.
Just as there are services that create email lists for rental, there are other companies
that produce email newsletters for the express purpose of being advertising
vehicles for others. Take advantage of their expertise – it will leave you more time to
do what you do best.

Chapter Three – Email Marketing, Getting Permission by Simon
Rickett
Happily, the Sweet Spot is currently beginning a long-overdue email marketing
campaign. Betty is beginning to put together her email list by creating a “birthday
special.” Anyone who signs up for the email list – and lists their birth date – will
receive an email coupon for a free cupcake on their birthday.
“That’s a great idea,” I said, ﬁlling in the email form.
Betty was beaming as she bragged that she’d thought of it herself. Standing at the
counter of her bakery, she looked as if she was queen of the future. And, in many
ways, she was!
Of course, each small “victory” for email marketing just makes more clear how
many more “victories” are waiting to be won. Over the course of a few weeks, Betty
had garnered several hundred email addresses. What’s more, she added another little
perk to her offer – anyone who signed up a friend, got a free mini-cupcake; anyone
who signed up six or more friends, got a free dozen cookies.
The Sweet Spot became a veritable frenzy of online activity. In short time, Betty
was producing a weekly newsletter that was being read by hundreds of email
subscribers.
She was working out on online ordering system, which would allow her to ship
cookies and cakes to anyplace in the world!
“And to think, it wasn’t that long ago that I was ﬁrmly rooted in the non-tech
world,” she said to me one morning, shaking her head in wonder. Then she gave me a

playful jab in the shoulder. “Shall I tell you how much business is up?”
I remained silent. Two could play this teasing game.
“Come on, you want to know,” she insisted.
“Of course I want to know,” I told her, laughing with her.
“Almost thirty percent,” she said proudly. “What’s more, online orders account
for nearly a quarter of my orders now.”
Betty had taken to email marketing like a proverbial duck to water. It wasn’t long
before she restyled her shop so that one corner was devoted to an “online order pick-
up” counter. Customers who ordered online had only to show up to find their orders
already boxed and ready to go.
The lessons that Betty learned – and implemented – for her small business are
readily applied to almost any business, whether it be large or small, whether the
business be service oriented or product oriented.
Email marketing can always improve the business marketing model.
William, an old college friend of mine, had gotten a very good job out of college.
But, in short order, the long nine-to-five grind wore him down.
“It wasn’t that I minded working,” he said to me when we happened to bump into
one another one evening at the pub. “But after May and I got married and had a
baby… well, I didn’t like being out of the house for those long blocks of time.”
The Internet Age is most successful when it is allowed to provide real flexibility –
in every way – for people. William no longer wanted to be “stuck” working his long

hours in an office. He often left before the baby was awake and came home after the
baby was bathed and put back to bed.
“I spent a good many evenings just looking at a sleeping baby,” he told me, the
sadness and frustration of that time reﬂected in his expression. “Wasn’t for me. I
couldn’t hack it anymore.”
As I listened, he told me how he’d begun to do small carpentry jobs for people in
the community. “I’ve always been good with my hands. Remember how I used to work
in my dad’s shop?” He had always been a remarkably handy guy and he would have
made a great craftsman – or shop teacher – had not the siren call of wealth called to
him.
But it wasn’t long before he decided that money alone wasn’t enough to make a good
life.
“Man, my friend, does not live by bread alone,” he said to me, quoting a fairly
insightful source.
“Still, you’ve got to pay the veritable rent,” I suggested.
He nodded. “True enough.” He described how he’d managed to parlay his
private craft working into a fairly successful specialty furniture-making business. He
set up a workshop in his garage and, except when the baby was sleeping and he
couldn’t use his power tools.
“Of course, it is always a challenge to make ends meet. What I’d like to do is to

enlarge the services I offer…”
He had many great ideas for expanding his small business – a newsletter with
furniture he made, handyman tasks he would perform. He even wanted to open a
small hardware shop. His problem was getting that information out to his clients and
potential clients.
I raised my glass. “Well, mate, I might not have the hands to be much of a craftsman
myself but I can certainly help you with this.”
He looked at me curiously. “What do you mean?”
With that, I began to speak about the benefits of email marketing.
“But I’m not even a proper business,” he protested. “It’s just me. I offer a
service. That’s it.”
“That’s all you need,” I answered. “The same benefit that email marketing brings
to a multinational company is available to you – on a smaller scale, of course.”
“Of course.”
Like Betty, William was an innocent babe when it came to email marketing. In
fact, when I began to tell him about it, he seemed to get flustered and overwhelmed.
“You’re making more out of this than there is,” I told him. “At bottom, email
marketing is nothing more than its name suggests – using email as a marketing tool.”
“I’ve got an email account. How do I…?”
“Look,” I said to him. “Why don’t I come over one morning and lay it out for
you very simply?”

“Sounds good.”
When we met, I explained that email communication was really just that…
communication. “That’s really all marketing comes down to anyway, right?
Communication?”
Email marketing, in the broadest sense, means that every email you ever send to a
customer, a potential customer or to a public bulletin board has a direct role in your
marketing plan. That might mean that the email contains some kind of direct
promotional email – like Betty’s promise of a birthday cupcake, or it could be a
percentage discount to ﬁrst-time customers.
The purpose of such email promotions is two-fold: to win over new customers
and to convince existing customers to use your services or buy your product again.
“Suppose you’ve made a small end table for someone,” I suggested. “Wouldn’t you
like to convince them to have you build a console or some other piece of furniture for
them?
Or perhaps help with their wood ﬂoors?”
He nodded his head as if I was reading his mind.
“You’ve actually already done the hard part,” I explained to him.
He looked at me curiously, not following my point.
“Look, there’s a billion low-end furniture shops. The most important thing you
market is your skill and your competence and build continued trust with your
customers.
I know you do that in your business but, in a marketing context, that comes down to

effective communication.”
Email marketing comes down to a three-fold strategy:
Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or
persuade existing customers to buy again
Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the
customer relationship
Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other
people
William listened thoughtfully. When I had outlined this strategy, he nodded and
said that, to his mind, it really didn’t sound all that much different than a more
traditional marketing strategy.
“It’s not,” I agreed. “Certainly not if you are thinking in terms of the goals of any
marketing strategy. But using emails rather than a more traditional format is not only
much, much more efficient and cost effective over time but it allows you to tailor your
advertising in ways that no other media allows.”
So, while it is possible to think of email marketing as little more than the
electronic equivalent of direct mail advertisement or a print newsletter or even ad
placement in an existing magazine or newspaper the analogy is only partially sound.
It is true that these conventional options allow you to market your product or service
to existing or potential customers. However, there are a couple of very signiﬁcant

differences.
One, email marketing requires permission. Never forget this. Email marketing
is not the equivalent of stuffing a flyer in everyone’s mailbox or in the screen door.
Such a strategy is SPAMMING and it demonstrates bad form, marginal results and is
generally outside legal parameters. (I hope that was sufficient to get your attention!)
However, when you have gotten permission you will find that email marketing opens
a world of potential that more conventional methods of marketing can not even
imagine (and, as Betty learned, getting permission from a trusted vendor is not
difficult. In fact, you can make a list simply by having customers provide email
addresses for subsequent “quality checks” or “satisfaction surveys”. This is ethical
and legal so long as your provide a clear “opt out” choice.)
The benefits of email are readily apparent once you get over the “conceptual”
hump of asking, “What is it?”
Email marketing has become remarkably popular because its benefits include:
Cost effectiveness. Sending email is much, much cheaper than any other
form of communication between you and your customers.
Email marketing is proactive! You are going to your customers rather than
having to passively wait for them to come to you, or to your website. Marketing
should never be a passive enterprise.
Email marketing is successful! It works!

Perhaps most importantly, you can tailor your email marketing almost to the
individual customer (this, obviously, requires more work than simply shooting off a
generic email to everyone on your list but it is possible to do, as I will discuss below,
by creating your list with care, anticipating individual needs, and having a method for
using that information to create subsets of your primary mailing list.)
I have already discussed the three types of email marketing: Direct email,
retention email, and advertising in other people’s emails.
“It sounds brilliant,” William said, enthusiasm starting to shape his words.
“When can I start.”
I raised my hand. Having lit the creative ﬁre beneath him, I felt compelled to
point out that, for all its amazing beneﬁts, successful email marketing is not all that
simple.
“There’s a catch?” he asked, sounding crestfallen.
“Well, not a catch exactly,” I said. “But you know, it’s like they say, anything
that sounds too good to be true usually is. Email marketing is as good and effective
as it sounds. However, to realise that effectiveness, you have to understand how best
to use it and set it up.”
Clearly, it is far cheaper to send a thousand emails than it is to send a hundred
letters through the postal service. However, there is the matter of designing and
delivering the right email messages to the right people.

“Huh?” William asked.
“Well, let me use Betty as an example. Now, in addition to her admittedly tasty
cookies and cakes, she also has a sugar free line of pastries which are a bit hit with
people who are dieting or who have diabetes. Imagine if she sent the same email to
those people as she sends to the customer who cannot live without a chocolate
delight cake! They’d feel betrayed and would not feel as dedicated to her shop and
her product, right?”
William nodded. “Yes, I see your point.”
How Email Marketing is like a pair of pants
Got your attention? Good. This is an important point. For all the thousands of
ways that effective email marketing is nothing like a pair of pants, there is one way in
which the analogy holds beautifully. No matter how nice the style or how wonderful
the material, if the pants don’t ﬁt… well, they aren’t going to look good. A good pair
of pants is all about tailoring. So is effective email marketing.
You’ve got to tailor your email to your recipients.
The last thing you want is an email two sizes too small for your customers. So to
speak.
Of course, once you’ve tailored your message and honed your list you’ve still got
to manage the most difficult part – getting your customers or potential customers to
read the email.
This may seem like the easiest thing in the world. If you get an email, you open it

and read it, right?
Wrong!
Your customers, like you, lead busy, complex lives. They don’t want clutter and
anything that smacks of something they don’t need to deal with amounts to clutter.
Your task is to design email marketing messages that your recipients will not only
open but actually read and then act on!
Even then, your work is not done. It is not enough for you to make a list, design
your email, send it out and get it read. You still need to be able to measure and
analyse the results of your marketing campaign.
So, as you can see, an effective and successful email marketing campaign, while
the best possible way to go forward in our brave, new world, is not for the weak of
heart.
However, for the business determined to survive and to thrive in our global economy,
it is the best and most effective method of marketing.
“But what about a website?” William asked. “I have a friend who can make me a
website…”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” I sighed, shaking my head in a most condescending manner.
“Haven’t you been listening? Of course you should have a website. But a website by
itself is not going to get your customers. You have to think of a website as a place,
hopefully a nice place on a wide, magniﬁcent virtual boulevard. It’s your shop. But
getting someone to visit your shop – coming to your website – requires advertising.
That, my friend, is marketing.

“And that’s what email marketing is all about.”
Of course, I pointed out – not for the first time – it all hinges on permission.
When “No” means “NO!”
We live in a crazy world. People are bombarded by so much stimuli in their
personal and professional lives that they feel inundated. They feel like they can’t “get
ahead” of the curve. For most of us, we carve out some small “safe” place, our
sanctuary. More and more, that is in front of our computers.
When you invade that space, you trespass not only on private space but you make
people feel violated.
In other words, just because you can send an email doesn’t mean you should.
People became so enraged by the sheer volume of unwanted email that they went to
various lawmakers and they passed laws against unwanted email messages. Against
SPAM.
Email marketing is all about establishing real, credible, trusting relationships with
clients and potential clients. Doing so inevitably translates into sales and profits.
Nothing damages that credibility more than an email marketing campaign that does
not first gain permission.
Effective and responsible email marketing depends on permission. However, just as
permission can be a complex and thorny concept in personal relationships it can also
be complex in commercial relationships. And, just like in social communities, the
subject of permission is debated intensely in the marketing community.

On the one hand, the issue of permission is very straightforward. You need an
email address owner's permission before you can send him or her a commercial
email.
Period. Without that permission, then the recipient of your mail will likely consider
your message as SPAM and, without question, you do NOT want to send SPAM.
Not only do you run the risk of having your email accounts shut down if you are
accused of sending SPAM but you could also have your website closed down and, it
goes without saying, your credibility and reputation will suffer.
And that’s all without talking about any criminal action if you are breaking the
law.
In short, there are some very real practical considerations when it comes to the
issue of permission. However, apart from these considerations, there is still a strong
case to be made that a long-term successful email marketing relationships with
customers and others can only work anyway if it is permission-based.
Which brings us back to the real question – What constitutes permission? To
paraphrase Hamlet, “there’s the rub.” In trying to deﬁne obscenity, the United States
Supreme Court noted that a simple deﬁnition was difficult but that you would know
something was obscene “when you saw it.”
In other words, you’d simply know. A similar dynamic is often at play when
people discuss – and debate and argue – about what it means to get permission. For
some it is a certain look. For others, a hand shake. Still others require a written
contract.

However, as a good rule of thumb, you might want to remember that it doesn’t really
matter what you consider permission. The only definition that counts is the one
understood by the person receiving your email.
“Permission” is not a democratically determined idea. From a marketing
perspective, each and every customer is the final word in the matter. It doesn’t matter
that “the majority” of people say one thing. It doesn’t matter what you think. What
matters is that recipient. The recipient and whoever is responsible for administering
the infrastructure of the Internet.
Period.
So, when everything is said and done, you want to remove as much uncertainty
from the concept of permission as you possibly can. There should be no ambiguity.
No assumptions. Nothing that can be misunderstood.
Permission is… permission. Not saying, “no” is not the same as saying, “yes.”
Giving permission is an active decision. For example, when a customer purchases
something from your online store and also clicks on a box marked "please send me
news about product updates via email.".
Bingo! That’s permission. To paraphrase an eminent philosopher who never
lived to see the computer age, that would be permission in “any and all possible
worlds.”
You can comfortably and confidently sent that person product updates by email. Of
course, even that isn’t that simple. You also have to give them the opportunity to
change their mind – at any time.

You see, it is a lot like personal relationships. Saying “yes” is permission only
until someone says, “no.” Then it’s no. Permission is withdrawn. All bets are off.
I suppose it’s not all that much of a stretch to continue to use the analogy between
these personal relationships and email marketing. In truth, what you’re trying to
establish is a relationship that is based on trust. The same pitfalls that exist in one
kind of relationship exist in the other.
As with most things, knowledge is your best resource when it comes to
permission and email marketing. So, educate yourself!
If you are considering creating an email marketing campaign, you must read up
on the subject of permission and SPAM. If you don't appreciate the importance of
permission and the risks you invite if you play fast and loose with it, then you could
be heading toward commercial disaster.
“Yike’s,” William whispered. “This is all sounding so overwhelming.”
I assured him that there was no reason to panic, though. In real terms, it’s
actually pretty easy to make sure that the address lists you use or build yourself are
permission-based.
Although both Betty and William were relatively new to actively and aggressively
marketing themselves and their products, others who have experience in marketing
still struggle with the permission issue. Those who are new to email marketing but
who have been involved in marketing in other media, whether radio, television, print,
or direct mail seem to not “get” the permission aspect of email marketing.
For them, the issue is getting your information “out there.” The more efficient

the medium, the better.
“I never had to ask permission to put a commercial on television,” Leon, a man
with a number of years in advertising, pointed out. “Those commercials went right
into people’s living rooms.”
Radio. Newspapers. Even direct mail. It was all the same. The idea of asking
permission before trying to make a sale was anathema to advertisers.
“Who would ever let you advertise if you have to ask permission ﬁrst?”
A good question. Wouldn’t you rather watch a television program without
advertising? If the advertiser asked for permission before putting a commercial on,
the answer would almost always be, “No way!”
What these advertisers need to understand on a conceptual level is that email as a
medium is not like those others. In fact, it is much more like the telephone. It is both
personal and has the potential to be powerfully intrusive. Just as many people around
the globe got tired of getting up from their dinner tables to answer a call from a
telemarketer, unsolicited email had got customers and potential customers fed-up.
And the last thing you want your customers to be is fed-up!
I ran into a guy who builds mailing lists for clients. He makes a practice of
getting permission for clients but he tends to do it almost “on the sly” – using sign-in
sheets at trade shows, requests for demonstrations, those sorts of things. Not what I
would classify as actually getting permission.
And while it might be that such people are managing to meet the letter, if not the

spirit, of the laws concerning SPAM I would suggest to them that they are
squandering the opportunity to have a much more successful and efficient marketing
campaign by getting real permission.
However, for those who are satisfied with merely doing all right… there’s not
much I can say that can win you over to doing email marketing in the best possible
way.
Why would you care about the best possible way? You’re satisfied with “all right.”
But, if you are the kind of person who is not satisfied with doing “well enough”
then you might want to consider that when there are large health studies the studies
often find a subtle skewed result. They have trouble being absolutely sure that the
beneficial outcome is due strictly to whatever they’re testing. Why? Because people
who are compliant and follow the rules tend to take care of themselves in many other
ways as well.
Now, why is this relevant here? Because when people “opt in” to your email list,
they are establishing a similar tendency. They are more likely to respond positively to
your email marketing and to the products and services you sell! In other words, these
are your people!
Let’s say our television advertiser spends millions of dollars to put a commercial
on during a television which reaches ten million viewers. Ten million viewers! Imagine
that! With that kind of reach, certainly the commercial will be very beneficial to the
advertiser. And maybe it is. After all, advertisers do extensive studies on the

demographics of who watches what kind of television program. However, it is more
likely that out of the ten million viewers, only a small fraction are interested in the
product being advertised. And of that fraction, only a small number are interested in
making an actual purchase.
In other words, the “bang for the advertising buck” might be worthwhile but it is
hardly impressive.
Permission-driven email marketing is extremely efficient. You are targeting
exactly the people who are most likely to spend money on your service or product –
people who have chosen to have you contact them!
Email marketing is phenomenal because, done well, you get:
Better response rates
Increased trust on the part of your customers and subsequent brand affinity
to your brand
Better deliverability.
There’s no question that creating a permission-based mailing list that is focused
and has a well-drafted message takes time and money. It is equally true that your
permission-based list will be a lot smaller than a list comprised of unsolicited names.
However, like the television example, if you have ten million people on your list but
only one million are even interested in your product, that seems pretty inefficient to
me. Sure it sounds impressive to have a list of ten million names but I would much

rather have a list of one million made up of one million people who are interested in
what I have to sell than a huge list where ﬁnding the people who are interested in my
product is like a shot in the dark.
Size – does it matter?
Email marketing has a efficient elegance. It isn’t about the size of your list or
beating your customers over the head with email after email. Ultimately, all marketing
is about getting great results and building relationships. Everything else is hot air.
And, quite simply, permission gets better results and is the only way to build email
relationships with customers and subscribers.
So let’s dispense with any more foolishness about the relative merits of getting
permission or not getting permission. It is much better – on every level – to get
permission.
I mean, what are we really talking about after all? At base, permission is just
getting consent to receive your emails. But, once you have committed to a
permission-based list, you have to consider several other things.
There are really two kinds of permission: "expressed" and "implied." As you
might suspect, “expressed” permission is most explicit and direct. It comes from the
user
himself when he checks a box requesting your emails on a site-registration form or
point-of-purchase postcard, or he agrees in person or sends in an email request.
“Implied” is a softer kind of permission. Rather than a direct request for your emails,

it results from some other action. In certain ways, the “implied” permission is closer
to saying, “not saying no is saying yes.” If a customer does not remove a check from a
pre-checked email permission box on an online registration, or if she hits the “agree”
button on an end-user agreement (without really reading all the fine print!) that lists
receiving emails as a condition for using a site.
Purists – and in this regard, I am a purist – insist on “expressed” permission.
Implied permission is just another name for opt-out – which is a perfectly fine option
for people to remove themselves from a list they’d already chosen to be on but not a
fine option for putting them on the list to begin with.
CAN-SPAM, a 2003 United States law that regulates commercial email, allows
opt-out email marketing (I guess the United States Government is not quite as much
of a purist as I am in this regard) but with a couple of caveats. The first is that all
commercial emails must have a working “unsubscribe” function. In other words, you
have to let people get off the list. Second, emails that are sent to recipients who did
not provide “affirmative consent” (another way to say “expressed” permission) must
include language that indicates that the message is “a promotional email.”
CAN-SPAM tries to make email marketers “play fair.” Still, these rules, while
clearly articulating what is legal, fall short of promoting best practices for email
marketing. And, without question, "best practices" email marketing means opt-in
only.
Now, you would think that “opt-in” pretty much says it all. But even the ole “optin”

has two distinct levels:
"Single opt-in." In this level, the recipient is automatically added to a list
after completing a Web opt-in form, sending in a postcard, emailing a request,
etc.
"Double opt-in" or "conﬁrmed opt-in." Here, the recipient requests a
subscription, which generates an automated email message to which he must
reply or click a link to conﬁrm the subscription and is subsequently added to
the list.
Despite what I’ve noted, there are still those who doubt that permission-based
email lists get better results and result in many fewer unsubscribes, spam complaints
and blocks. However, objective evidence suggests that this is indeed the case.
Marketers who begin with an opt-out mailing list strategy and then make the wise
switch to a strictly opt-in strategy have found that their click rates jump nearly ten-
fold on average.
Studies have consistently shown profound difference in survey responses in how
people respond to email marketing depending on whether it is unsolicited or
permission-based.
For example, when asked whether they were “curious” to read an email, 48% of
those who had given permission to receive the email said that they were curious to
read it. For those who hadn’t given permission? The number was 16%.

Signiﬁcant difference.
Perhaps most telling is the percentage of people who open the email but are
“somewhat annoyed” by receiving it. For those who gave permission, the percentage
was a modest 7% but for those who received the email unsolicited the percentage
jumped to a whopping 76%!
What marketer is enthused by knowing that from the get-go 76% of the recipients
of the marketing message are annoyed to be receiving it? Talk about digging yourself
a hole that you have to climb out of.
As people become more sensitive to the dangers of computer viruses, people are
more likely to simply delete emails from unknown sources than to open it and be
swayed by a marketing message contained in it.
Inelegance and inefficiency, non-permission is thy name!
Marketing is all about making money, correct? Well, non-permission emails
seem to waste money in many ways. 20%-30% of people change their email addresses
in any given year. Therefore, when you send out unsolicited emails, you are likely
sending out a lot of emails to addresses that don’t exist anymore or to people who
have adjusted their security settings to a higher level and so are blocking the
message.
If you don’t collect the addresses yourself, you haven’t established any real
connection to the address owner and he or she has no motivation to keep you up to
date on any change in their status.
What’s more, SPAM-reporting services often create speciﬁc email addresses and

add them to mailing lists just to see who grabs them up and SPAMs them. Then, they
report those email senders to blacklists or ﬁle spam complaints.
Tag, you’re it!
So if you’ve just rented a low-cost mailing list thinking you’ve saved money…
guess what? It’s likely jam-packed with spam traps. If you get reported often enough,
or if you generate enough spam complaints or bad addresses, ISPs and email
providers will block everything coming from your email address, IP address, or
domain or company name.
Bottom line, it ain’t worth it!
Face it, there’s no such thing as a free lunch and something that looks too good to
be true usually is. Do the work and create your email list. With a good email list, you
can work magic!
I mean it. Forget the surveys and statistics. Permission-based email marketing
just makes more sense, both for customer relations and your marketing budget. Why
would anyone in their right mind (you!) throw money at people who have no
demonstrated interest in your products or services? The pittance you get from the
small percentage of people who will open an unsolicited email because they're
interested in your product will be more than offset by the diminishing returns you'll
face as more ISPs block your emails.
So, when considering your email marketing list, keep this things I mind:

Permission must be granted. Never assume (it makes an “ass” out of “u”
and “me”) that you have permission. Have the people on your list actually given
you permission or are you simply assuming they want to receive your emails?
WIIFM (what's in it for me?) This is the gold standard of any recipient of
any marketing communication. Recipients want to know and need to
understand "what's in it for me." You'll ﬁnd that you will have a much more
content (and therefore, more receptive) audience if you consider their needs in
your permission process and your email campaign.
Permission can be revoked. The Lord giveth and the Lord… Recipients
should have the right and ability to get themselves off your list if they don’t
want to be there. Ironically, the easier and clearer you make this process, the
more loyal your list will be.
Permission cannot be transferred. Never! Preserve the privacy of your
people on your list as fervently as you would protect your own. Just because
you have permission from someone to send them an email does not mean you
have the right to give their name and email to anyone else. This is an absolute
rule. Do not give this information to anyone, not your distributors, parent
organisations, associations, etc.
Permission is NOT granted… Come on, who’re you trying to fool? If you
get someone to toss a business card into a ﬁshbowl at a trade event, great.

But that doesn’t mean they’ve given you permission to use the information on
that card unless you have clearly stated that by doing so, they are giving you
permission to send them specific information.
•If you ask me for an email address as part of the data gathered in the
sales process that does not constitute permission unless, again, you
clearly state that by doing so, you are being given you permission to
send them specific information. ("May I add you to our mailing list to
receive periodic")
•If you have visitors to your website fill out a request for information still
does not constitute permission unless… (I’m starting to sound like a
broken record, aren’t I?) you clearly have them opt-in and give you
permission to send them specific information or a specific newsletter.
Ways to Gain Permission- ASK! What a concept! You want something… just
ask. The golden rule: just clearly ask for permission. You’ll be amazed at how
often you will get a positive response if people understand the situation, and
what they'll receive as a result. Again think of the “WIIFM” rule!
Opt-in: “Click here if you would like to receive our email newsletter.” Short
and sweet. No fuss, no muss. This is the standard, and most common, method
of permission.
Opt-out: “Click here if you do NOT want to receive our email newsletter.”
This is discredited. Do not use this method to create your list. It is, at base,
deceptive.

Double opt-in: Here’s the gold standard. “Click here if you would like to
receive our email newsletter, then receive a veriﬁcation email that you must
respond to in order to double opt-in.” Admittedly, this method is lengthy, and
your list size grows at a slower rate, but the people who double opt-in are
giving you a very strong permission to email to them and with that permission
a very stronger likelihood of responding favorably to your emails.

Chapter Four – Making a List, Checking it Twice…by Simon
Rickett
If you’re fortunate enough to have a dynamic house list that seems to “grow
itself” each month… good for you. However, most people need to develop a list from
scratch. This is not always an easy task but if you put your time and energy into the
early going, you too will soon have that “dynamic house list” that is the envy of every
other company and business.
To be successful in any business is to have a plan. Building a list is no different
than any other aspect of your business. You can’t expect to do it successfully if
you’re going to do it haphazardly. You need to come up with a strategy of how you’ll
find, approach and then convince your target audience – your customers and
potential customers – to give you their email addresses.
Often, people place the “cart before the horse.” They write a beautiful newsletter,
filled with interesting tidbits about their business. They make it look good, etc. But
then… they find that they don’t have anyone to send it to yet. They are like the girl
who buys a prom dress before getting asked to the prom. It is much better to have
someone to send your newsletter to before you devote too much time to writing it.
List first.
Newsletter second.
But remember, building a list is not a static event. It is an ongoing process. So,
don’t wait until your list is “complete” to get that newsletter out. Just wait until you
have what you consider a “critical mass” of people to send it to.

Now, whoever is writing your plan should have a clear and complete sense of
who your target audience is. Mother’s of pre-teen girls? Athletic types? Car
enthusiasts? Audiophiles? The more the person writing the plan knows about your
target audience, the better the plan will be. Who do you want to reach? How can you
“reach” them – online and off?
(And don’t forget to establish how much you can afford to spend to get an email
address!)
Consider the content of your email. In all email marketing, there is gong to be
some kind of promotion. Remember WIIFM! Make sure you provide content that is
value laden for your recipients.
Remember too that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. That is, look to see
what your competitors are doing online. Try to find out how they gather email
addresses.
Consider if any of their methods will work for you.
Finally, define the specific things that you will do to build an opt-in list. These
things might include:
Leverage existing touch points to get the opt-in for email.
Identify specific Web sites, email newsletters, search engines, and other
online spaces where a banner, co-registration, or other mechanism will help
reach the target market.
Brainstorm offline ways to grow the opt-in email list.

When you begin your plan, start with solid numbers. How many email addresses
do you want to add each month? Only when you have established your quantitative
basis can you intelligently look at the qualitative aspect of building your list. This is,
of course, the creative and challenging part. Where does your target audience “hang
out” – on-line and off.
It often feels as though you’re searching for a needle in a haystack at ﬁrst but,
when you think about your target audience, you probably have a good idea where to
look.
After all, they’re your target audience for a reason – you have a product or service for
them. You know your demographic. Put that knowledge to work for you.
Getting Them to Come Calling
Ultimately, the purpose of email marketing is to drive clients to your store or,
more likely, to your website where you can sell your products and services to them.
But, of course, until you have someone to send your email promotion to, you’re at a
disadvantage.
The quickest way to get a list is to rent or buy one. But, for many reasons, most

of which I’ve already covered, renting and/or buying is often not the best strategy.
Optin email lists are the gold standard. So, don’t expect the list to magically appear.
Do the hard legwork to get you list established and growing. Those names are your
sales leads.
The more effort you put into developing your email list, the more potential customers
you will have. By the same token, if you don’t collect email addresses, your online
business growth will halt.
It ain’t rocket science.
So, with the ultimate goal in mind, consider these tips for establishing your own,
in-house, opt-in, high-quality email list:
Offer Content. Don’t expect people to come running to you to give you
their email addresses. However, if you offer them something in return –
whether an informative newsletter, a coupon for something, a free
membership… something … they will much more likely to be willing to give
you their email address. (Subscriptions to a newsletter, e-zine, ebook, software
or online course are the best method. Many studies of internet use indicate
that most people go online to learn something. So, help them. And in the
process, help yourself.
Don’t make it hard! Life is hard enough. You want something from these
people (for them to give you their email address.) Don’t make it difficult for
them. Make it as easy as you can. Make the form obvious. Make the
instructions clear. Whatever you do, if someone visits your site, don’t let them

leave without offering them the chance to sign up. (Try including a link on each
of your web pages!)
“What happens in Vegas…” Guarantee the privacy of your customers! None
of us wants the information we give out passed around willy-nilly. Make sure
your clients and customers know that you respect their privacy and that you
will guard it.
Discretion… Don’t ask too much too soon. The soft sell is always more
effective long term than the hard sell. Sites that don’t allow people to enter
without first getting a lot of information generally end up with fewer visitors
than they would like. Keep it simple at first. Once you’ve established a
relationship with your customer/client you can ask for more information. Think
of your relationship as dating. Go slow at first.
Give something away! Everyone loves a present. So, satisfy that delight we
all have in getting something for free. Offer an incentive for subscribing to
your newsletter. Remember: WIIFM!
Word of Mouth. Once you’ve established a relationship with a customer/
client ask them to pass your website along to their friends and colleagues.
Coming from a friend, the site is more credible. Build on your relationships.
Viral emailing. Make it work for you. The Internet is all about sharing
information, and we love to let others know about good places to learn at. If
you make yours a great one, you’ll start seeing people share the wealth with
others-and your web site URL will get seen by more people.

People love choices. Offer visitors to your site different options: some may
want to subscribe to a newsletter, others may want to read your special
articles, while yet others only want to hear about special product updates.
Create your subscription box to offer different choices, then deliver them what
they asked for. Maybe you don’t know you’re doing it, but your engaging in
“market segmentation” – meeting the needs of different sectors of your market.
This is a good thing.
You’re in it for the long haul. Develop your relationship with your clients and
customers. People would much rather deal with someone they trust than
someone they don’ t know – even if that ends up costing a bit more. So take
care to take care of your email relationships. Respond promptly. Be business
like and appropriate. Be polite.
If you look over this list carefully, you will realise that it really amounts to a common-
sense approach. Remember, it’s the Internet, not a distant planet. The same kinds of
things that work in other environments work here.

Chapter Five – Strategies that Work by Simon Rickett
Email is an integral part of your marketing plan. Say it again. That’s right, email
is an integral part of your marketing plan. So, make it work for you!
While the main value of email marketing is to drive traffic to your web site, there
are other important reasons that emails can be used in promoting your business.
Remember, email works! Develop strategies that will help your email marketing be
even more successful.
Establish brand identification. Nothing is more fundamental to marketing than
branding. Using emails to strengthen your brand is easy – and essential. You can
reinforce brand identification. But how? By knowing your demographic – if your
business sells toys for young children, you will want to use fonts and graphics that
will appeal to those who buy toys for young children, mothers (and don’t forget
grandparents!) Similarly, if humor will appeal to your customers, use it! Topic and
tone matter in email communications. Be consistent in your tone and always choose
content that will matter to your customers. (A final word about fonts and graphics…
USE THEM CREATIVELY! The vast majority of email users have the ability to receive
HTML email – graphic email. And HTML email more than doubles the response rate of
plain text email.)
Be informative! Update your customers on your products and services. If your
demographic is teens – write about acne cream! What’s the best out there (and what’s
the best deal you have on it!) Provide seasonal gardening tips if you have a garden

shop (or even if your demographic tends to be people who take good care of their
gardens!)
Build good customer relations. Use your emails to establish and reinforce a
positive image of your reputation for services and attentiveness. Include
“testimonials” from satisfied customers. Make sure your customers know how to
reach you – and how to get a prompt and polite response! Customer service is the
difference between customer loyalty and losing a customer – much more than modest
differences in price.
“Value” is rarely defined by cost alone. Remember, SERVICE. Make your good service
part of every email you send – from the auto-responders you send when clients fill
out an order form, confirming that their order was received and is being processed,
to the product updates you send your email list. SERVICE.
A contact number for those customers who feel that they need to reach you
immediately goes a long way to establishing and maintaining your professional
credibility.
Making your commitment to quality service evident in all your communications
can go a long way towards creating positive customer relations. And, regardless of
your painful memories of your middle-school English teacher, make sure that your
emails are grammatically correct and have no spelling errors! Keep the tone polite
and business-like.
Let the nature of your business define the “tone” and informality of your email. A

swimming pool cleaning service and a bank should NOT send out emails that sound
like they were written by the same person!
Use emails to answer customer questions, and overcome objections to buying
from you. Answer – or anticipate – customers questions or concerns in a clear, easy-
to understand manner. Give your customers useful information, information that
they’ve either already asked for or information that you anticipate will make it easier
for them to use your products or services. Include articles that help address common
customer concerns that may make them resistant to buying products from you. For
example, if you send along an article that guides a customer in the most successful
way to plant grass seed (watch out for those shady areas!) you will likely win over a
customer for all your products.
While your website might include a section devoted to “Frequently Asked
Questions” why not include one or two of these with every email you send out? At the
very least, doing so communicates that you are dedicated to addressing your
customers’ needs. And that can never be bad for business.
Use Your Email Signature EVERYWHERE. It doesn’t matter if you are
sending an email to your old college roommate or a friend from a ﬁshing trip,
ALWAYS (do the CAPS convince you that this is important? They should!) include your
website URL and email address in your signature. It’s free advertising for your

business, and is an effective method of letting people know that you’re online, and
ready to receive requests from them.
Send Greeting Cards. (Or, if you’ve managed to include the information –
Birthday and Anniversary Cards.) Your regular email client list will welcome a friendly
greeting card from you during holiday time. A greeting card is a nice gesture and a
friendly reminder that you wish them a happy season, and to let them know about
seasonal promotions.
Hold a Contest. People love to compete, especially if there’s a modest prize for
the winner. So, take advantage of human nature and use email to hold a contest, and
to offer prizes to winners. You increase interactivity and, in the process, increase
interest in your newsletter or ezine. (Be sure to encourage contest participants to get
others to sign up as well-and watch the interest grow. You might even create a
contest where a prize goes to the person who signs up the most names!)
Create your own newsletter, online course, or ezine. This suggestion, of
course, demands the most creatively, time and effort but it might also be the most
effective way to increase the beneﬁts of your email marketing campaign. After all,
don’t you want people to perceive you as an expert in your ﬁeld, or your business as
the “best” resource for products and services? Don’t you want to market your online
business effectively? Then consider investing in the time and effort to create your own
ezine or newsletter.
You will be building your email list (see the second suggestion)

You create a forum to place your own ads, and promote your services or
affiliate programs
You will get your website address, your logo, and a link to your programs in
each email that you send.
Use email as part of your overall marketing plan. By doing so, you help your
customers form a positive image of your business, improve customer relations, and
help get the word out about your business.
Get started now and make
EMAIL MARKETING WORK FOR YOU!!! by Simon Rickett

Simon Rickett - The power of email marketing

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